Goin 4 Broke, brought to you by Metalwerx Design and Fab

71chevytruckguy

71chevytruckguy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Location
Kernersville, nc
First off, I want give a huge THANKS to @ol'Jeeps and all the guys at Metalwerx Design and Fab! If it wasn't for Scott's knowledge, skills and generosity, this project wouldn't be half as awesome as it turning out!

Second off, I'm about three months behind in starting this thread.

As most of y'all know, I had a pretty bad crash at the last race at The Flats that pretty much took out my old rig. Prior to the race, I had a problem with breaking transmissions just about every ride. After much discussion with @ol'jeep and @mcutler , and trying every possible solution we could think of, finally came to the conclusion the frame had given up the ghost. Scott and I decided the best solution was to build a new frame. After the wreck, the plan got a "little" more involved. I wanted a rig that looked like a jeep, but could handle the abuse of my throttle happy driving style with some major suspension upgrades. The end design is basically a buggy with jeep sheet metal.

We got started thanksgiving weekend by stripping my old rig down and getting going on the frame. We decided to go with 2x4 .188 wall material for the frame based off a YJ frame with some design changes added by Scott. Overall, I'm extremely happy with how the frame turned out. Mud Pro cut out BDB crosses to use as fish plates on the frame that came out great!

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Oh sit! I like it already!!
 
NC-V said:
They will be great once he has Fuller cut on them for a bit!
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Wonder where I could get some 44" thorn turds at? Lol. The people on the internet said they were the best! On a serious note, wheels and tires are already taken care of.
 
After the frame was done, next order of business was the main roll cage. Decided to reuse the main cage from my previous rig since it was in great shape and only had a minor tweek in it from the crash. So we cut the cage off my old rig, lowered it three inches, and spuared it up on the new frame. That gets us into late December. New C pillar bars were made in preparation for the sheet metal mods, as well as bars coming of the A pillars to tie into the front part of the frame.
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Up next was getting the axles under her. I was able to reuse the front GM Dana 60. It has 5.38 gears with a Detroit locker, 35 spline inner and outer chromoly shafts from the great folks at ECGS, Yukon super joints, Yukon hardcore 35 spline hubs, high steer arms from ECGS, beefy diff cover, and fabbed up a Metalwerx low profile truss. The rear end from my old rig was junk so a new housing was sourced and all the guts swapped over. 5.38 gears with a mini spool, disc brakes, Barnes 13 bolt shave cover, a new @Barnes 4wd Ultra 100 truss was installed along with their pinion guard tie in kit.

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Know that we had the chassis ready, it was time get the axles in. Just to speed the process up because Scott needed the frame jig free, the old rear end housing was used along with the old rear link bars. Once we got it off the jig, I made new lower link bars from 2" .250, slugged 1.5" solid 7075 aluminum, with 1 1/4" Barnes hiem joints. The uppers are 2" .250 with 7/8" Barnes hiem joints. If you haven't figured it out by now, there are no more leaf springs in the front! The front link bars are built the same as the rears, with all link bars being 34" just to make it easier to carry spares.

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Looks good! Are those upper link mounts vertical? Doesn't it limit the degree of mobility?
 
NC-V said:
@ol'Jeeps better get his butt in gear if you are going to make it to the SHOP in 3 weeks! Looking good!
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Lol, that won't be happening. Was going to try and have it done for the flats race, but since that got cancelled, Harlan for 4th of July is the new goal. Hopefully sooner!
ghost said:
Looks good! Are those upper link mounts vertical? Doesn't it limit the degree of mobility?
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Ran them like that on my previous set up and never had an issue. I'm sure @ol'Jeeps can explain more why they're mounted that way.
 
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